from What meat is it we need?
[1024]
In my dream, geography helped,
straight line inclined. The British & French first
designed by pencil: borders’ edges
sharp as a new needle.
Fatigue, not muscle, weakness, some signs.
All distance measures by you, yet not:
Wigs she wore as a younger mother—
that was fashion. Scarves, crisscrossed
back & cat framed sunglasses.
Some borders do not stretch.
I’ve tried, grabbed their ends across earth, twice—
Instead this drip, transient fatigue, prolonged
clouds, her persistent cough. Here snow
appears green, blades sharpened to death.
Your dream seeps into my dream
& this time no body
watches you die, free
falling height to the ground.
[1024]
My meat flesh now tender—
When dehydrated thumb and
forefinger pinch joint skin, it sticks up.
Din of women. Knuckled wind pipe—
her pain loud howl—high pitched—
her legs bled water.
Water featured in border escape
crossings as a tossed small bottle
or scattering canon sprays. The missing sandal on the small girl’s left foot.
Consider this:
A snake shed its skin orange.
The many rinds of prisoners.
Holy crawl to erase
penciled nation lines—
one for a thousand bills—
We understand: this crusade war to take a while
and people must be patient, jumpsuit-dressed,
captured, & recaptured by lens, illumined.
In my dream they pulled threads out of the sun’s nostril—
birthed dangling bodies of bone, skin
estranged from its meat shed.
When she had passed who’d become him on a street she first
spoke good evening—for well, abundance, benevolence, affluence—for kindness.
The first time my neck saw your jaw
wet. Now
dehydrated time now pinned.
I see my nose in its full
length—softened
edges blurred in sight
fat: carved flesh promising
meat of breath. Yet,
consider that in my dream I carried
noose to hang to inverted café lamps:
decorative green gas gasket
gripped by ceiling, hung off metal pipes.
My face round and as if softness seizes us— I won’t make a you I loved
tied: gait of bodies policed—
the many enemies we have—
agape, the many scales we may skin off our fingertips.
Or, before eyes
earthquake— I’ll split
my mouth open: your scent, that soap.
[1024]
perhaps it means, here is my heart for you
or what of the world, you, what of your eyes, your forearms—
to move a Storm to Hope with very good planning, very precise execution—
notoriety of torture, images smuggled by Cesar the United
Nations displayed: woman with numbers
on forehead, dead in a land of dead bodies with numbers
on foreheads —brigades not food in camps
image of tourists surrounding
a floating, smuggled body—
no dismemberment this time: arm
of the body next in number looked starved
clavicle so sharp
by the courage of our pilots,
our sailors, our soldiers
of death how it fits in time there were times
I couldn’t fit— a grief anticipating grief
all mine or for you or must be (I haven’t yet stepped up)
— brown eyes turned milky with age of memory loss diluted
but hers pretended sharp
here is my heart for you to accessorize with:
ventricle necklace, aortic bracelet
wear it on your wrist you who dare return
elegy or a Pepsi for one quarter or less
at the rest of the martyr—
when I took my pants off you liked the hurriedness of it, you
and then we’d go—door shut—for hours we looking at cats fucking